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Actuarial Life Table

ssa.gov

51–60 of 62 posts

Re: Actuarial Life Table

#51
post #44

Does this mean that until your 113th birthday you can expect to, on average, live to your next birthday?

For that you'd want to look at when the death probability exceeds 50% (108 for men, 109 for women). By 112 there's only a 40% chance you'll live to your next birthday

Re: Actuarial Life Table

#52
There is something I've never understood about this. Actually, I suspect that it is just plain old wrong.

It looks at what ages people died in the year 2019. If you die at age 80 in 2019, that means you were born in 1939. But if people born in the year 1939 are living to age 80... how do I put this... wouldn't you expect people born in, say, 1989 to live longer? Wouldn't people born 50 years later have longer life expectancies? Especially if you believe the stuff about accelerating rates of technogical growth.

Re: Actuarial Life Table

#53

Wow, as a guy I have a 1/5 chance of not even making it to retirement. (65) 1/3 chance of not living past 75. These are not good odds.

And coin toss of making to 80 (1/2). And if you make it to 90, every year is a round of russian roulette. Great. I didn't need an existential crisis today :) I really wonder about the quality of life as I age though. There is such a wide spread in my family. One of my grandfathers died of COVID early in the pandemic - he made it to 83. I had always considered him too stubborn to die. He survived two congestive heart…

> Great. I didn't need an existential crisis today :)

Don't check what are the odds of you dying this year. You won't like them either.

Re: Actuarial Life Table

#54

There is something I've never understood about this. Actually, I suspect that it is just plain old wrong. It looks at what ages people died in the year 2019. If you die at age 80 in 2019, that means you were born in 1939. But if people born in the year 1939 are living to age 80... how do I put this... wouldn't you expect people born in, say, 1989 to live longer? Wouldn't people born 50 years later have longer life ex…

By choosing someone who died in 2019, you've implicitly chosen from the lucky group of survivors. This is not representative of everyone born in 1939. That is the discrepancy.

If you add the current age to the remaining years of life, the total lifespan is monotonically increasing. This is reflecting the fact you are only looking at the expected age of an increasingly dwindling group of lucky survivors.

Re: Actuarial Life Table

#55

There is something I've never understood about this. Actually, I suspect that it is just plain old wrong. It looks at what ages people died in the year 2019. If you die at age 80 in 2019, that means you were born in 1939. But if people born in the year 1939 are living to age 80... how do I put this... wouldn't you expect people born in, say, 1989 to live longer? Wouldn't people born 50 years later have longer life ex…

IANAA, but my assumption is that that is why they update the tables every year— we always have young cohorts with incomplete data, so the best we can do is extrapolate from the past. Given a fixed cohort, over time as new tables are generated and the cohort ages, the accuracy will converge to reality. You could then look at past tables retroactively to see the error in the original extrapolations (which could be large due to black swan events).

Re: Actuarial Life Table

#56
post #40

Shameless self plug - I'm an Actuary, and as a way to learn React I put together a website that teaches you the basic concepts and math behind these actuarial table. https://www.lifecontingencies.com

Great job! Your site did a fantastic job of putting this into context for me.

Re: Actuarial Life Table

#57
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I "soft retired" early. People haven't said it to my face, but I get the definite impression many think I'm crazy for "abandoning" work. I'm through hiking the PCT this year, something I never thought I would do until much older. I'm not really a brave guy, I fear change, but you got to take your chances while you're still alive.

What does soft retire mean? I've always liked the idea of interspersing retirement years with active work, and increasing the relative frequency of retirement years as I get older. However, I understand the job market might not always be appreciative of gaps in employment.

If you are a contractor it is not that bad. You can also use that time to do a small side project and put it in your CV.

Re: Actuarial Life Table

#58

There is something I've never understood about this. Actually, I suspect that it is just plain old wrong. It looks at what ages people died in the year 2019. If you die at age 80 in 2019, that means you were born in 1939. But if people born in the year 1939 are living to age 80... how do I put this... wouldn't you expect people born in, say, 1989 to live longer? Wouldn't people born 50 years later have longer life ex…

Think of life expectancy as the expected age of death if you lived every year of your life in 2019.

Re: Actuarial Life Table

#59
post #40

Shameless self plug - I'm an Actuary, and as a way to learn React I put together a website that teaches you the basic concepts and math behind these actuarial table. https://www.lifecontingencies.com

I like the visuals on the "How will I Die?" page. It is interesting to scroll up and down through various ages to see how the causes of death change.

Re: Actuarial Life Table

#60
post #40

Shameless self plug - I'm an Actuary, and as a way to learn React I put together a website that teaches you the basic concepts and math behind these actuarial table. https://www.lifecontingencies.com

I like the visuals on the "How will I Die?" page. It is interesting to scroll up and down through various ages to see how the causes of death change.

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